The Cadillac Three

09.12.2014

Tonight saw the final live date of The Cadillac Three on their UK tour in London and having wowed rock fans across the country, it was a sold out venue with the crowd ready to party to make it a brilliant night of live music.

The opening band for the show were Guildford band Sons Of Icarus. Full of gritty guitar riffs, thumping bass and pounding drums it was a powerful start to the night, with the soaring vocals sounding clear over the music, only a few bars in and you knew the band had a lot going for them. Starting off with ‘R.O.B’ the band gained a lot of interest from the many people who had arrived early. ‘Make Amends’ and ‘Falling’ continued the infectious sounding rock, the band clearly enjoying playing to such a receptive crowd. ‘Not Myself’ picked up the pace with its dirty sounding riff and delicious bass line, the band were sounding epic only after a few songs. The heavy grungy sound of ‘You Want It All’ with the melodic singing coursing through the song made this one of the highlights of the set before ending on ‘Let It Burn’ which gave a final glimpse of a far too short set from the band. Sons Of Icarus played an excellent set and are certainly a band to see live. Exciting to hear, they are definitely a band that are going to gain a lot of new fans with their sound.

Tax The Heat were next to hit the stage and as they are RARC favourites already you can read the full review of their excellent set here.

The Cadillac Three have had a great time playing to sold out venues across the UK on their all too brief tour and they had an air of let’s get out and party with it being the last night before they head back to the US. Straight into ‘I’m Southern’ the crowd were singing along from the outset along with Jaren Johnston and were loving the sound of the band. With Kelby Ray sat down in front of the lap steel guitar and Neil Mason pounding the drums all eyes were on the band as they played through a set of delicious southern sounding rock with songs such as ‘I’m Rocking’ and ‘Tennessee Mojo’ bringing delighted whoops from the crowd. Favourite ‘Back It Up’ had the entire venue singing along and it was an animated band that played the stage, with Jaren at one point climbing on the amp. ‘White Lightening’, ‘Party Like You’ which the crowd duly did and ‘Turn It On’ sounded awesome live. In homage to a love of whiskey Kelby happily showed the crowd that they hadn’t left it at home and ‘Whiskey Soaked Redemption’ was a perfect accompaniment to that fact.

Telling the crowd how much they have liked being over here and how meeting Joe Elliott from Def Leppard was a real highlight for them, they continued with the epic sounding tunes such as ‘Down To The River’ and the highly entertaining ‘Get Your Buzz On’. Whilst mentioning other towns they had played to catcalls from the crowd, Jaren teased the crowd by saying it isn’t soccer, before impressively changing it to football which brought an enormous cheer from the crowd. ‘Days Of Gold’ ended the set and it included quite frankly the best drum solo ever seen as it was actually a drum duo with both Jaren and Neil playing drums, other bands take note, this is the way to do a drum solo if you ever put one in a set as it was just amazing to watch.

A final encore of ‘The South’ which being that their final date of the UK was played in the South meant it was a rowdy final song in which the whole crowd sang along to from the outset and it was a great ending to what had been a brilliant live show from The Cadillac Three, let’s hope it won’t be too long before they return.